ABSTRACT
School teachers were among the lowest paid employees during Kaaroor’s time. A lemonade-vending boy doesn’t return a quarter coin to Sir as he didn’t have it. Sir is ‘after’ the boy to ‘recover’ the almost-outdated coin, and this is contrasted with a toddy shop auction venue where the figures run into thousands. (in ‘Quarter Coin’). A Sir, going round an extremely lively temple festival, feels that the fire-works and the gunpowder explosives should blow up the whole temple and himself too as he has no coins to buy some simple glass bangles his daughter had asked for (in ‘Strange Creature’). Private schools owned by families or community groups paid much less than the vouchers the Sirs signed for. Kaaroor’s Sirs didn’t starve but they missed quality in life, and also hard cash so necessary in a changing economy. A Sir, on his last day in school, says teachers should never be allowed to retire. They should be allowed to work till they dropped dead. From tomorrow, he will be part of that comic strip of ‘retired’ Sirs and that too because he worked in a government school (in ‘Pension’). Private schools never paid any retirement benefits. Thematically ‘Monthly Food Bill’ is striking as it depicts the poverty of both – a paying guest Sir and his host family. At the end of the month, the ‘big’ question is: did he take 20 or 21 meals that month? Sir says 20, host says 21!
